


behind the raven's closed eyes

by YukinaMika



Series: 2020 [16]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Percy Jackson Fusion, Asking for a friend but is it really chatacter death of that character comes back to life?, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Jasonette July 2k20, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:54:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25424212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YukinaMika/pseuds/YukinaMika
Summary: Next time,she tells herself.Next time…For Jasonette July 2020's prompt 'Children'
Relationships: Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug/Jason Todd
Series: 2020 [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1593016
Kudos: 71





	behind the raven's closed eyes

Gotham has always been a city where monsters roam. She is a harsh mistress, embracing Darwin’s evolutionary theory of survival of the fittest. She fosters only the best: those who fight and fight just for another day in this hellhole of a city, those who struggle and squirm just to stay aloft from the tides that would sweep them away, those who claw and drag themselves to the top, uncaring of those they crush on their quest.

Most would think that those so called monsters are the children raised under Gotham’s merciless hands. They should have been metaphors, of those who wear human faces yet whose actions have no a sliver of mercy.

Except, you know, stranger things have happened in Gotham: the monsters that roam the darkened streets are literal beasts.

Or at least, they are to the eyes of a young child born and raised in Crime Alley.

Jason has seen a woman with the lower half of a serpent slithering down the dirty street. He has smelt the goddamn awful odor of a huge man with one eye bumbling near the convenience store that is nearest to Crime Alley. He has heard the terrifying howls of large black dogs that seems to blend into the shadows, coming and going like ghosts.

“You must not look at them,” his mother tells him again and again whenever she is sober enough to do so. “Act like they are invisible and carry on like you have never seen or heard anything.”

Her voice is always cautious and quiet like it is a secret that should never see the light of day. Her fingers would comb through his hair, gentle and loving like the touch of the morning sun on skin that has only known the bite of winter.

“No, no!” she wails and bawls time after time when she is high as a kite. “It’s not fair! Too young! Don’t! Don’t take him!”

Her voice cracks and she crumbles into a heap when the drug runs in her veins, when her eyes clouds over. The sobs would echo through the thin walls even as he bundles her in that one blanket that they share, her nails digging painfully into his arms as she shakes and shakes like a leaf in a terrible storm.

Jason has always been rebellious but he, like all of those born in Gotham’s slums, strives for life, for a tomorrow where they can look through the gray clouds and see the sun for the first time, for a future where food graces their table, their water filtered and plenty, their roof always at its best and their bed warm.

So he nods to his mother’s words.

_(There is a locket that he always keeps close. It is a keepsake, passed down from his beloved mother who smiles like the warmth of summer._

_It is a little thing, golden in color and even Jason would be fooled into thinking that it is real gold had he not been scurrying for food to live by since he is old enough to remember. There is a carving of a ring of leaves like the laurel wreaths that usually appear in the statues and the paintings in the museum downtown._

_“It is pretty, isn’t it?” his mother asks, eyes soften like she is gazing at the most precious thing in the world._

_“Is it gold?” he whispers, tracing the leaves with a finger, mesmerized by the brightness of the cool metal._

_His mother laughs. It is one he rarely hears from her lips: carefree and relaxed, unburdened by the weight that Gotham lays on its citizens’ shoulders._

_“Of course not, silly,” she ruffles his hair, affection and joy in her eyes. “It’s nothing expensive but it’s my favorite thing.”_

_And that is enough for Jason to keep it close, even when his mother can never once again tell him that she loves him, can never run her fingers through his hair, can never pull him into a hug that leaves him warmth all over.)_

* * *

Jason dreams of a place filled with light.

It sounds like laughter, of those guffaws of his mother when he told her a joke, of the type of gleeful barks that Sparky let out when she was overjoyed. It feels like happiness in cupped hands, shining and overflowing like an endless river.

He closes his eyes and lets himself go, let his shoulder fall and inhales the lovely aroma of freshly baked bread. The locket is warmth in his hand and for once, he is at peace.

If this is a dream, then he hopes it never ends. Just him, in a bakery so warm and bright and the nostalgia of the better times when his mother was still alive and smiling.

There is no biting cold of Gotham’s street, no suffocating darkness that saps the will to live of a person. No hunger the gnaws at his insides, no thirst that claws at his throat. Just warmth and a sense of safety that he has never experienced.

If only this lasts forever… If only he can stay here…

And the sound of something suspiciously like giggles comes.

He jolts, hackles rising, walls coming up in record speed, spinning on his heels to survey the place and only gets a glimpse of black hair and eyes like mercury before everything fade away like the dying embers of a fire, like colors washing out by waters, like silence settling in a once-bustling room.

_(Marinette watches as the boy fades away, shoulders once again tensed like he is carrying the world on them, like Atlas struggling under the weight of the sky._

_She was about to introduce herself. She wanted to ask about this mysterious boy and how he came into her dream. She wanted to know about the place he comes from, about the golden locket in his hand that seems to be calling for her._

_She wishes to see that face falling into serenity, of the invisible weights lifted from those small shoulders – too young for the weariness in his body, for the cautiousness that clings to his skin. She wonders of the beautiful blue and green that blends together in those eyes and yearns to see them not hardened by distrust and fear but softened with a smile._

_Next time, she tells herself. Next time…)_

* * *

Except, there is no next time.

Marinette dreams of red: the sound of bones snapping under the merciless metal, the deranged laughter of a monster who wears the face of a man. The choked off sound of a throat working desperately through the blood and mucus just for another breath, the whimpers of heartbreaking pain in the face of savage, inhuman cruelty echo.

She stands frozen in front of a limp body on the cold floor, bound in bitter chains. Those beautiful eyes glaze over, blood dripping from various wounds.

The counter hits zero.

**Author's Note:**

> Look, my notes said that Jason's a child of Apollo. This fic said 'Nope!' and then he became a clear-sighted mortal whose mother (Catherine) was a child of Apollo.
> 
> Marinette stayed the same like in the notes (a clear-sighted mortal) so I guess any fic in the future set in this verse is just two mortals who can see through the Mist and the shits the world of gods and monsters throw at them.
> 
> ~~Look, I know Catherine wasn't Jason's biologically mother (Sheila Haywood was) but blood, sometimes, does not work out.~~


End file.
